Beyond La Defense: Carrying Through Paris' Historical Life Line. A Compositional Challenge for the End of This Century

Abstract

Carrying the business district of Paris, La Defense, on and through the monumental threshold of La Grande Arche and thus prolongling what has been the historical axis of Paris for these two centuries past leads in this paper to a discussion of how this could be best done. As the backbone of Paris and the grandiloquent expression of her history is here in question, only a coherent intervention will answer her needs. The White Book (Livre Blanc) that was suggested by the Prime Minister himself as a first step in up-dating the master concepts of the Paris' region's planning, while speaking of that region's need for this axis and of its activities international tone nevertheless insists that the mooted prolongation would have to reconcile these new demands to the great traditional layout of the region and yet do this in the most up-to-the-minute way. The paper ventures to establish a feasible compositional planning basis on which such a very entailed solution might possible rest.